NEW YORK | Independence Plaza Tower | 1,090 FT | 72 FLOORS

[Zapatan]

Originally Posted by UrbanImpact

NIMBYs who live next to the tallest building in the USA

It's insane, just hope they can't do anything.

[NYguy]

Originally Posted by Zapatan

It's insane, just hope they can't do anything.

They can file a meaningless lawsuit, or hope there’s some endangered fish or bird that will be harmed by this tower.

[NYguy]

https://tribecacitizen.com/2026/05/27/tower-address-will-be-308-greenwich/

Tower address will be 308 Greenwich


May 27, 2026

Not sure why this has been bugging me, but I have been asking for months to learn the address of the proposed tower in Independence Plaza and I finally learned: 308 Greenwich. I guess I wanted to call it by its name.

The tower will be in line with Jay Street.

It is still insanely high. You can read the full story here or ingest this as a recap:

-The owners of Independence Plaza — Vornado Realty Trust and Stellar Management — have filed plans with the city for a tower that will rise where PS 150 once was

-The maximum allowable bulk for the site would include a 1090-foot, 72-story tower with 976 residential units

-The tower would sit on a base that is 85-feet tall at the Greenwich street wall, rising to 125 feet after a setback

-Approvals *could* be complete by mid-2027

-Demolition would take six months

-Construction could begin by early 2028 with a 48-month construction period, finishing in 2032

-The 45 units currently on the site in the townhouses would be demolished and rebuilt elsewhere on the property

BIG questions still remain about the affordable housing that the developers are required to build in exchange for 20 percent more additional bulk that what the site allows. Those units — right now 251 — could be on site, off site, part of new construction, substantial rehabilitation or preservation of affordable units.

According to a Crain’s story from when Independence Plaza was refinanced, currently 60 percent of the units are market rate at an average of $6,000 per month; 20 percent are Section 8 housing, for which the federal government pays 70 percent of the rent; 20 percent fall under the city’s landlord assistance program — or rent stabilized.

[NYguy]

https://www.nyc.gov/content/planning/pages/calendar

Independence Plaza Modifications Scoping Meeting - City Planning

Thursday
Jun 25, 2026
2:00 PM - 5:00 PM

[Zapatan]

Originally Posted by NYguy

They can file a meaningless lawsuit, or hope there’s some endangered fish or bird that will be harmed by this tower.

I hope I'm wrong but never underestimate these people's ability to at least get the height chopped.

Hopefully it can still be 8-900 feet.

[ChiND]

Originally Posted by NYguy

https://www.nyc.gov/content/planning/pages/calendar

Isn’t this as of right? If so, the developers should seek sanctions from the plaintiffs for filing a frivolous lawsuit.

[NYguy]

Originally Posted by Zapatan

I hope I'm wrong but never underestimate these people's ability to at least get the height chopped.

Hopefully it can still be 8-900 feet.

Originally Posted by ChiND

Isn’t this as of right? If so, the developers should seek sanctions from the plaintiffs for filing a frivolous lawsuit.

Yes, it is as of right. They still have to do the environmental review, and unless this tower will harm some rare bird or fish, likely won’t matter. Any lawsuit though would be against the city itself.

[NYguy]

https://tribecacitizen.com/2026/06/12/seen-heard-community-meeting-on-independence-plaza-tower/

Community meeting on Independence Plaza Tower


June 12, 2026

The Community First Development Coalition will host a virtual community meeting on June 18 at 6pm to review updates on the proposed tower for Greenwich and Jay, describe their neighborhood plan, and prepare for a June 25 City Planning Commission “scoping meeting” that will review the plans.

[NYguy]

https://tribecacitizen.com/2026/06/24/citys-first-meeting-on-independence-plaza-tower-is-thursday/

City’s first meeting on Independence Plaza tower is Thursday


June 24, 2026

The Department of City Planning will host its first public meeting on the tower planned for Greenwich and Jay inside Independence Plaza tomorrow, Thursday, June 24, from 2 to 5p.

The Independence Plaza Modification Project is seeking a modification of the original Large-Scale Residential Development approved in the early 1970s.

The developers — Vornado Realty Trust and Stellar Management — do not have to go through the city’s land use review process because the original plans allowed for a tower, but they do have to submit an Environmental Impact Statement that analyzes the impact a development will have on the environment. And environment means everything — natural environment, built environment, as well as quality of life for local residents. The EIS then must find ways to mitigate that impact.

The EIS will analyze impacts on things like air quality, transportation resources, neighborhood character, open space, shadows, emissions, noise and more.

A review of the project at Community Board 1, which the applicants did not attend, showed that the proposal still calls for four buildings: one 1090-foot, 72-story tower and three podium-like buildings that are 125-feet tall. The diagrams below show the footprint for two different options. The buildings would have 922 new residential units.

As it stands now, construction will begin in 2028 and finish in 2032.

[MAC123]

Near 1000 units, love to see it. Just need this all over the city lol.

[NYguy]

[NYguy]

Love how the NIMBYs try to make it look like a monster coming to eat the neighborhood...


https://cfdcoalition.org/2026/06/22/before-the-june-25-scoping-meeting-what-residents-can-do/

[TK2001]

They can't even take the time to make an accurate visual. AI images are incredibly overused and that visual shows

[NYguy]

^ They don't even care. It's just classic fearmongering.

[mrnyc]

City’s first meeting on Independence Plaza tower is Thursday

June 24, 2026 • Community News, Real Estate

The Department of City Planning will host its first public meeting on the tower planned for Greenwich and Jay inside Independence Plaza tomorrow, Thursday, June 24, from 2 to 5p. The meeting will be remote and live streamed; check here for instructions day-of on how to participate. You can submit written comments until July 6 via email to [email protected].

The Independence Plaza Modification Project is seeking a modification of the original Large-Scale Residential Development approved in the early 1970s. The developers — Vornado Realty Trust and Stellar Management — do not have to go through the city’s land use review process because the original plans allowed for a tower, but they do have to submit an Environmental Impact Statement that analyzes the impact a development will have on the environment. And environment means everything — natural environment, built environment, as well as quality of life for local residents. The EIS then must find ways to mitigate that impact.

The EIS will analyze impacts on things like air quality, transportation resources, neighborhood character, open space, shadows, emissions, noise and more.

A review of the project at Community Board 1, which the applicants did not attend, showed that the proposal still calls for four buildings: one 1090-foot, 72-story tower and three podium-like buildings that are 125-feet tall. The diagrams below show the footprint for two different options. The buildings would have 922 new residential units.

As it stands now, construction will begin in 2028 and finish in 2032.

More TK after the meeting.


Tags: Independence Plaza
5 Comments


Tricia J
June 25, 2026
Thanks, Pam, for reminding us all about this hearing. I attended and testified, as did Council member Chris Marte and Assembly member Deborah Glick, and there was overwhelming (unanimous for the time I was in attendance) opposition to this proposal. In my 36 years in the neighborhood, 18 of them on the community board, this, in my opinion, is the worst proposal we’ve seen. And that’s actually saying a lot. One would actually be hard-pressed to find a more inappropriate location for this proposed development. Sandwiched between, and up against our most vulnerable communities – the cherished and hard-won senior center at Independence Plaza, the also hard-won and only park we have in the neighborhood for our youngest children, the already challenged federal townhouses that are directly adjacent to the proposed demolition/construction site as well as the borderline number of rent-protected tenants at IPN (Vornado and Steller Management have systematically dismantled all but @100 affordable housing units the Mitchell Lama program put in place in the 70’s). The fact that this proposal has made it as far as public hearings reveals the gaping hole we have in our city legislation in what triggers a ULURP review. We need to all hold hands and push back on this hard and strong. Community Board One is not against development. But we are dead last in affordable housing in Manhattan, and to come to our community and propose a 72-story tower that offloads its affordable housing obligations to another neighborhood, and in this particular location, is shameful.


more:
https://tribecacitizen.com/2026/06/24/citys-first-meeting-on-independence-plaza-tower-is-thursday/

[NYguy]

Originally Posted by mrnyc

City’s first meeting on Independence Plaza tower is Thursday

June 24, 2026 • Community News, Real Estate

more:
https://tribecacitizen.com/2026/06/24/citys-first-meeting-on-independence-plaza-tower-is-thursday/

Same article, just above.

[NYguy]

https://tribecacitizen.com/2026/07/02/la...ependence-plaza/comment-page-1/#comments

Lawsuit filed against tower for Independence Plaza


July 2, 2026

A salvo in the fight against the tower planned for Greenwich and Jay has been launched by residents of one of the historic townhouses on Harrison.

The owners of 41 1/2 Harrison first filed a complaint in New York Supreme Court claiming that the development will block the only entrance to their apartment and requesting an easement in the courtyard. That original complaint was dismisssed by the court. But the owners — Mark Felipe and Caroline Baptista, who have owned the property since 2019 — are now asking the court to reverse its decision, which was partially based on the legal advice of a Vornado vice president.

The legal back and forth is not easy for me to dissect, but the image below shows the problem at its root. Unit 41 1/2 is a completely separate unit from 41 Harrison — they were detached by the original owner in the 1970s, though they are both owned by the Baptistas. Unit 41 1/2, where the Baptistas live, uses a door on the courtyard — on the east-facing side of the townhouse. Number 41 uses a door on Washington Mews, the little north-south street that always has cars parked on it.

The development site boundaries, as illustrated in the developers’ materials presented to the city, go right over that unit.

UPDATE: I did not reach out to Stellar or Vornado about this; I made the incorrect assumption that they would not reply. But their press representatives sent a note when they saw this published. They note:

-The Baptistas’ claim is dismissed. They are moving to reargue, based largely on the same points they used the first time around. [which I note above]

-The project would not temporarily or permanently change access to the rear unit.

-The image shown outlines the property line – not the proposed building sites.

-There are not people watching her house.

The complaint goes on to say that when the court heard the case last time, it accepted testimony from a “real estate expert” who was in fact the executive vice president for multifamily development for Vornado Realty Trust. The Baptistas argue in the complaint that the court cannot accept testimony from an expert provided by the defendent.

Caroline Baptista testified at Community Board 1’s Land Use Committee meeting last month, when the committee reviewed the project.

“This project threatens my family’s safety — I will not have an alternate means of egress if this project moves forward,” she said. “We will be trapped inside of our home without any means of escaping.”

She also said she felt threatened by the developers.

“We have people sitting in cars watching our houses every day,” she said. “This statement I make now despite fear of being personally attacked. I speak for every woman who has ever been made to feel unsafe by a powerful man. It is very hard to share all the bullying — everything that has happened.”

[NYguy]

https://www.ebroadsheet.com/towering-ambitions-2/

Towering Ambitions
Seventeenth Tallest Building in America Proposed for Tribeca’s Independence Plaza

development team led by Vornado Realty Trust and Stellar Management has filed plans with the City to build a 72-story, 1,090-foot residential tower in Tribeca’s Independence Plaza complex (near the intersection of Greenwich and Jay Streets). The proposed building, which would be the tenth tallest building in New York City and the 17th tallest in the United States, is slated to include 976 apartments.

This plan was discussed at the June 8 meeting of the Land Use, Zoning & Economic Development Committee of Community Board 1. Stephanie Kelemen, president of the Community First Development Coalition (CFDC), a Tribeca-based grassroots organization, said, “the developer has filed plans for a project that would add more than 700,000 gross square feet of new construction, demolish existing homes, and build a 1,090-foot tower on the site of a former Mitchell-Lama affordable housing complex.”

This was a reference to the origins of Independence Plaza, which opened in 1975 as a 100-percent affordable development, under a State program that provided developers with tax abatements and low-interest financing in exchange for caps on both tenant incomes and rent increases. But in 2003, when Stellar Management acquired the complex, the company chose to exit Mitchell-Lama and begin transitioning Independence Plaza’s 1,328 apartments to market-rate rents.

Ms. Kelemen noted that plans filed with the City by the developers seek to avoid the rigorous oversight of the Uniform Land Use Review Procedure (ULURP), instead treating the proposal as a “modification” of Independence Plaza’s status as a “large-scale residential development” (LRSD), a legal category that includes any complex encompassing at least 1.5 acres, with three or more buildings, and 500 or more apartments. (LSRDs are used in cases in which multiple, separate zoning lots are consolidated into a single unit for the purpose of erecting a project that will span the borders several such plots.) In what may prove to be a crucial distinction, an LRSD modification can be approved by City Hall, while a ULURP review would require a vote in the City Council. This

”The reality is that this project would permanently transform the scale, character, and future of this part of Tribeca,” Ms. Kelemen continued. “This community is being asked to accept an enormous project based on vague promises, incomplete disclosures, and an affordability story that does not withstand scrutiny. Independence Plaza was once a major source of affordable housing in Tribeca. Over time, that affordability has dwindled. The developer now wants credit for potentially creating 251 affordable units, even though those units may not be on-site and even though that number does not meaningfully account for the affordable housing that has already been lost. We do not support treating one of the tallest towers in New York City as a technical modification that can avoid the full public review this project plainly deserves.”